Trying to get comfortable in chairs that were designed to make people’s visits to the Captains office short, Sarah fought back the pain-induced grimace that tried to make itself known.
Seb had tried his best to keep Sarah from following Captain Haddock, but the Captains sheer size lent itself to making sure people were steadfast in following his commands. Knowing he needed reinforcements, Seb left, and Sarah was led by the Captain on the slow journey to his office.
Meanwhile, AJ, leaving Pelham in the cafeteria, trailed the trio as they tracked through the tired corridors, promising Seb he would follow them as far as he could. He had tried to circumvent Sarah’s entrance into the office, but without even a look of apology, a strong arm stopped him, and the door had been shut in his face.
The office looked like it was designed to be a boardroom, with an elaborate mix of immodest art and clean white walls, the space was meant for serious discussion only - like the board approving the following year's budget, or deciding which poor little Jimmy got the heart transplant. But the desk that now occupied the far wall of the room was a knotted, wooden desk that seemed better placed on a pirate ship than in a hospital posing as a half-way house, making sure to drag down the pompous nature of the room.
This was only the fourth time Sarah had been in the giant room, though Captain Haddock was a generally affable person, once you were behind his office door, you were there for one reason; a stern discussion. Hopefully one that didn’t end in an eviction. Sarah had been here with Jackson, who was the recipient of the 'chats,' normally as support, or as a pseudo-guardian. Today, it seemed, she might be the unwilling participant to the scolding lecture.
Once Sarah had stopped moving and settled in the seat, Captain Haddock ceased the busy work he was doing to Sarah’s left, and moved away from a drinks buffet, cradling a coffee in his hand. He passed another to Sarah, who took the cup with a mumbled thanks, then made to place it on the small table to her side.
Captain Haddock sat, his large leather chair creaking melodically under his mass as he leaned back and observed Sarah over the rim of his large clay coffee mug.
“So,” Captain Haddock began, “How are you doing Sarah?”
Befuddled by the niceties, and unsure with how to respond, Sarah remained silent.
Haddock raised his caterpillar eyebrows and angled his head forward, encouraging a response from his silent companion.
Sarah cleared her throat. “Um, I’m okay?”
The question gave Captain Haddock a chuckle, and the furball beneath his lips quivered in turn.
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“What have you been doing with yourself lately?”
Sarah was tired. She was sore. She was hungry. She wasn’t sure why she had to sit in this shitty chair and pretend to play nice with the leader of New Haven, when all she wanted to do was go to bed. But what she needed to do was find her brother.
Her eyes shifted away from Captain Haddock and flickered around the room, taking in the art on the walls - some of it looked to be old black and white photos of factories that were likely long-gone, while others were abstract paintings. She couldn’t see who had signed them, but they looked a bit rubbish. Though, she supposed, beauty was in the eye of the beholder. Maybe that artist was blind.
“Sarah?”
“Yes?”
“What have you been doing lately?”
Sarah sighed.
“Why am I here?”
“Why do you think?”
“Look, I respect your authority, I think you do a pretty good job at keeping everything in order here, but I have no idea why you want to talk to me, or why I would even be catching your attention. Jax isn’t here, so I doubt he’s done anything.”
“No, he’s not here, is he?”
“No.” Sarah replied quickly. In hindsight, she wished she had taken a moment to think this through, to better understand Captain Haddock’s intentions, but she wasn’t feeling good, and being forced into this situation was wearing pretty thin.
“Do you know where he is?”
“How am I supposed to know? He doesn’t listen to me, he does whatever the fuck he wants - as long as it helps Jackson Healy, he doesn’t care what happens or who it affects.”
“Quite so.”
“So, if there’s nothing else -” Sarah, her face flushed with pent up anger, went to rise from her seat, flinching at the pain as she did so without her crutches. Her crutches which she had just noticed Haddock had moved from the spot next to her to by the buffet he was originally standing next to.
He looked at Sarah, a small corner smile on his large face, challenging her to go for her crutches.
Challenge accepted, Sarah heaved herself to standing and began the painful process of limping to her crutches. Though the gap was less than 3m, the small shuffles she needed to take to allow for adequate weight distribution to reduce overwhelming agony made it feel like a mile away.
Sarah shook her head angrily, dismissing the prompt.
“Sarah,” Captain Haddock stood, and went to reach for her, she froze in anticipation, but instead he stretched past her and took the crutches as soon as she was near enough to grasp them.
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“Sarah,” he repeated and made her look at him. She looked from the empty space where her crutches were to Captain Haddock, being careful to school her expression; hiding her bewilderment and anger, before she matched his gaze.
“Can I please have my crutches back?”
“Soon.”
“I would like to leave.”
“In a minute Sarah, just listen to me.”
Haddock took a step closer to Sarah, and her back rose in warning as his menacing size dwarfed her. Sarah was above average in height for a female, but Captain Haddock was easily superior in size and structure for a man.
“Sarah, I wanted to talk to you about -”
Sarah’s arm flew out in front of her without warning, and Haddock was caught by surprise as her hand slammed into his stomach with a closed fist pushing through his barrel stomach more than should have been possible.
“Fuck,” Sarah muttered, quickly overriding whatever neural connection had been overtaken by her LENS, returning her hand to her side.
The look of surprise that happened across his face when Sarah hit him was short lived, quickly replaced with one of careful resolve, despite the frustration that was thickly emanating from him.
“Don’t do that again, Sarah.”
“What do you want?” She spat, trying to back away from Haddock who was taking smaller, more calculated, steps towards her - always ensuring he was just out of reach of her lest she try another assault. She was panicking now. What was he going to do? Her thoughts flashed back to the cannibals under the bridge. But not to the eating part, the part where she thought they were going to rape her. She eyed Haddock’s giant hands, his burly hands and knew if he wanted to, she wouldn’t be able to fight it.
A sob hitched in her throat, and then anger. Then she felt her LENS begin to take over, and she was about to lunge when he started speaking again.
“Sarah, I -”
The door slammed open, Maureen, a look of pure rage, with eyes ablaze, stalked into the room and began talking to Haddock. No, she was talking at him.
AJ and Seb came in behind her, the former putting away the tech tools he had used to unlock the door, while Seb rushed to Sarah and took her arm, and weight around his shoulders. Maureen snatched the crutches from Captain Haddock, and passed them to Seb while her assault on the burly man continued.
“She is sick. You are overstepping and you need to cut the bullshit. Now is not the time for whatever -” her hands flailed wildly to match her unchecked fury “- the fuck this is.
“Seb, AJ, get her out and to the med ward. NOW. As for you -” she poked a finger aggressively at Captain Haddock, “- I’ll be back to talk about this further.”
Haddock merely nodded, his jaw set and eyes flaring as he bit back a retort. Sarah looked over her shoulder as she was practically frog-marched to the med ward, and saw Haddock suck his teeth in frustration.
A viscous glob, composed of blood and mucus hung from Jackson’s chin as he tried, and failed, to prevent another hit to his face by the Australian asshole Tyke. His hands were tied behind him, and he was trying in vain to raise his shoulders to block the blows that assailed him - Tyke on the left and Jet from Brooklyn on the right.
Jax hadn’t been conscious when they carried him from the trash compound back to wherever he was now, but before his right eye had swollen shut, he knew they had brought his bag and the case with them, as they were thrown on the ground beside him.
The two men had stopped the beating now, and were sitting on the ground, with their backs against a concrete wall, inhaling a puff of what looked like a smoke ball - a round object that you could fill with narcotics, push a button, and it would aerosol into your nasal passage. Legal? Barely. Legal with street drugs? No. Reusable? At least, yes. They were portable and made to last. Except the straws were able to be replaced, and so the fact that these two were using the same straw for inhaling was pretty feral. Cheap enough, and easy to change, the ability to swap out the straws was meant to reduce any transmission of diseases between users, but no. Looks like these two were happy to catch whatever disease the other one had.
Their khaki green shirts were speckled with Jackson’s blood, with the Greenfield Gang symbol, a green dragon curled around a dying lily that was starting to come back to life, on the back of their left hands, was almost glowing in the low light of the room. The tattoos used a sort of chemiluminescence to make the effect possible.
They had been at Jackson for what felt like days in this concrete room with no windows, two doors and a single low air vent, but he knew it was more likely only an hour or so. Asking him about the Strip-tech™. He didn’t even know how this bullshit wannabe gang knew about the strips - he had been keeping them quiet and had only sold a few to some of his more trusted clients… of which NO gangs belonged.
But they did know, and now they were trying to learn more. Despite his insistence, they certainly didn’t believe Jackson when he said he had nothing for them.
Rest time up, the two men stood either side of Jackson once again. “Mate,” Tyke said. “You’re taking a bruising, you might as well tell us something and we can give you a bit of a heal-up.”
“What do you want?”
“Have your ears been shut the whole time?” Jet wasn’t impressed.
Jax took a painful inhale through his nose, winced, then moved back to breathing with his mouth. “No, but I have had a lot of stuff knocked out of me.” Jax spat out a tooth, and smiled, highlighting his point.
“Oh fuck mate, he’s angry now.” Tyke was half amused, half fake concerned.
Jax was knocked backwards, the chair legs shooting out under him at the blow from Jet’s fist that landed on his chest, opening the knife wound on him more. The clang as the restrained man fell to the floor, followed by silence was deafening. Tyke was worried, and bent down to evaluate Jax. Killing was never anything he wanted to be a part of, and this was getting awfully close to it.
“You knocked him out mate.” Tyke pushed the front of his mullet back in anguish. He stood, then began to work off some anxious energy by pacing.
“Asshole,” was all Jet said as he walked away, shaking his fist to loosen the swelling in his knuckles.
Jackson was breathing rapidly, his blood congealing and mingling with the oil stains on the concrete floor.
“I better call the boss and say…” he waved his hands around “... we got nothin’’” Jet said.
“Better you than me,” Tyke said, trying to gain control of his emotions again. He laughed as Jet pushed him as he walked past.
While Jet was on the phone, Tyke could hear snippets of the conversation. From what he could hear, he knew it wasn’t a conversation going in their favour. He looked down at Jackson and almost wished they could swap spots. At least Jackson was alive, for now, Tyke wasn’t so sure he would be that lucky if they didn’t go back to the boss with something.
Jet came back, his eyes downcast and a look of defeat on his face.
“Yeah, right, so we’re a bit…. Fucked,” he said and looked at Tyke.
“Fucking cunt,” Tyke’s concern for the prone man replaced with worry about his own safety. The Australian launched a kick at Jackson’s ribs, connecting with a crack, causing Jax to cocoon himself in a reflexive response.
“So - now what?” Tyke asked.
“The boss is sending some people to give us a hand…”
“A hand with him?” Tyke clarified, indicating Jax with his hand.
“I hope so.”